Archive By Section - Other Views

I have found the issue that can bring America together. Republicans and Democrats, urban hipsters and country folk, corporate scions and infrequent fliers - they all seem to agree: The federal government must not allow mobile phone use on planes.

The angels cried for Caroline today. How could they not, looking down from the heavens, watching the mourners pack Blessed Sacrament Church. The funeral service was attended by hundreds, those closest to her, those who knew her, and those who knew of her. Those who could not attend found time to pray for her soul. One found the time to write about her.

It's back. The PATRIOT Act - a grotesque, ever-mutating, hydra-headed monstrosity from the Bush-Cheney Little Shop of Horrors - has risen again. This time, it's got an added twist of Orwellian intrusiveness from the Obamacans.

Hidden just below the surface of the liberal media is a barely noticed trend of patronizing contempt: Joe Biden is the Democrats' Dan Quayle, but because he is a Democrat, they'll do anything to avoid treating him like they treated Quayle.

Michael Sam appears to be a fine young man. But, no, he isn't the first openly gay male U.S. athlete to play in a major sport. And "brave"? Can we please dispense with the absurd Jackie Robinson comparisons? Wake me when a black collegiate pro prospect "comes out" as a Republican.

When my kids were little, an older and more experienced mother told me that one key to raising kids safely is to limit the number of "nos" to what really matters and insist firmly on those. Motorcycles and heroin, she said, which seems like a pretty good list. I added driving drunk or getting in a car with someone who had been drinking. I left heroin on the list, even though heroin use is totally foreign to me. I have friends and family who have struggled with alcohol (mostly) and other drugs, but heroin is outside of my life experience.

February 12, 2014|
By Susan Estrich
Political commentator
|Other Views

Do Americans want another Clinton in the White House? As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flirts with running in 2016, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also a potential White House candidate, has put an interesting spin on Bill Clinton's White House years. Democrats shouldn't accuse the GOP of waging a "war on women," he recently told "Meet the Press," because President Clinton was a "sexual predator" with former intern Monica Lewinsky.

In 2010, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touted the Affordable Care Act as a bill "not only about the health security of America; it's about jobs. In its life, it will create 4 million jobs, 400,000 jobs almost immediately."

Democratic fundraiser/actor Ben Affleck - and the next big-screen "Batman" - recently gave an interview to Playboy. His own bias against Republicans, he admits, prevents him from fully enjoying a Republican actor's performance. "It's ... hard," said Affleck, "to get people to suspend disbelief."

President Barack Obama's support for the NSA's domestic spying program prompted a critic to say: "Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: 'Trust us, we won't abuse the data we collect.'"

The apparent heroin overdose death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman already has become a hockey puck in the war over the war on drugs. During a House subcommittee hearing on federal marijuana policy Tuesday, critics of the war on drugs hammered a White House drug official for putting too much emphasis on marijuana when Washington instead should focus on dangerous drugs that actually kill users.